


This Place

by htebazytook



Category: Star Trek RPF
Genre: Ex Sex, Lady Gaga references, Los Angeles, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-01
Updated: 2012-01-01
Packaged: 2017-10-28 16:49:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/309962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/htebazytook/pseuds/htebazytook
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Zach gets caught up in memories.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Place

Zach's about 40 paces from the terminal when he's hit by a truck of flashback:

> Chris is so busy being engaged in conversation with him–because Chris has to do everything with all-encompassing focus, no matter that half the time he just loses his train of thought because he's been thinking too intently at it… anyway the point is this is one of those times because he's too busy talking to pay attention to the troop of college kids that zoom by with their brick filled backpacks when one of them makes contact with Chris's gesturing hands.
> 
> Chris blinks and stops in his tracks, figures out the source and makes that universal sound of frustration that Zach privately dubs the growl-scream.
> 
> "What a D&G bag," Zach says.
> 
> "I'm sorry what?"
> 
> "Um, Dolce and Gabbana?"
> 
> Chris frowns. "No it isn't…"
> 
> "Oh my God, nevermind, let's get you some food immediately."
> 
> And then the influx of crowd provides a nice little transition back to the present.

Zach blinks like Chris at the bustle of people and wonders if he's finally losing it. If the little girl staring at him like he's a poor excuse for a grown-up is any indication, he probably is.

When the tedious lines and signs and bombarding advertisements of airport life are over with, when he's finally hit by the solidly hot California air he can breathe easy again. Los Angeles isn't home, but it's where he'd figured out how to feel right. There's just something about this place.

*

He catches up with all kinds of people, but somehow the important thing is that he's in the car with Chris driving along the coast. At least that's what would make the final cut in the movie version. It's certainly picturesque enough, and that's another thing he loves about California–all that epic outdoorsyness right alongside such metropolis.

"I never read anymore," Chris is saying with heavy morose.

"I mean, don't hold back, man, not reading is pretty much on par with getting cancer."

Chris ignores, which Zach doesn't mind because it means he's less likely to veer off a cliff. "I was reorganizing this random box of shit in my closet and it's like my cheap ass collection of Shakespeare from school, and I of course had pretentiously sought out every play ever written fully intending to read them all. I read, like, _a scene_ of A Winter's Tale. Like, I have a bookmark there all hopeful that I'm gonna keep reading."

Zach can't not make a face at the road ahead, and he feels like Chris can probably sense it. "I'm waiting for the deeper meaning, over here."

" _Anyway_ it's just weird because it brought me back to like my frame of mind at that point in my life. Like, my biggest accomplishment was going to be reading all my books and I had tons of time and didn't even consider like work or paying for school or, I dunno, it never occurred to me that there was some other goal in life aside from conquering the complete works of Shakespeare. I can't figure out when that all changed and it just feels weird, you know?"

"So, what, you've just been working on your wordiness in our time apart?"

"Always."

"No, I know what you mean," Zach says. He does. He and Chris have certain things they connect about, and it recalls how easy and perfect and magical the beginning of their relationship had been, or more specifically the time between when Zach had started thinking of Chris romantically and the time when they'd run out of things to say and gone back to Just Friends. Which was totally fine, and it wasn't weird, it really honestly subconsciously wasn't weird, but when they hit those moments of being on exactly the same wavelength Zach couldn't help switching his perspective back to that carefreely romantic one. At least until they ran out of things to say again. And it was all in his head, so Chris never had to know, although Zach suspected Chris might entertain similar thoughts.

After all that internal dialogue Zach has to catch his breath before responding. Chris is occupied with the color changing sun and constantly breaking in order to hazard a guess at the speed limit, smiley and content and the very picture of this place.

"I know what you mean," Zach repeats. "Like, you get triggered by the most random shit and you remember how you felt at certain times and it's like, are you serious, I was seriously that snobby emo kid who wrote poetry? Seriously? And then you wonder if you ever even had a sense of humor about anything at that age and spend the rest of the day watching Frasier on Netflix. Not because you want to, but because it's what you did at the time."

Chris laughs, and it gets caught in the wind. (They're cranking the AC with windows down like true hypocrites, but it's wonderful.) "So that's what you do for fun in New York. Oh, and I have a follow-up: how is watching Frasier a step up from the emo poetry?"

"Shut up," Zach says, watches Chris's hair quaking in the wind for a minute. "There's, like, too many options for fun in New York, so like you feel guilty for doing any single thing because then you shunned the other things, so then you just stay home and do something neutral and end up feeling guilty about not being decisive or just simply getting out of the house _anyway_ , so."

Zach can see Chris's eyes widen behind the shades, and even in such abrasive sunset they ring blue. "Catholic guilt works in mysterious ways, huh?"

"Oh yeah."

*

It's so hot when Zach wakes up. It hasn't been this hot since his first shitty apartment in Bloomfield with its no air conditioning and inconvenient distance from school but one sweet exposed brick wall and a decently hipster population. It's weird, because while California is all sun and nature, for people it's all oppressive air conditioning. Not here, though.

Zach opens his eyes and they fall magnetic onto Chris's sleeping figure. Beachily crappy beach houses mean sacrificing actual beds for pull out couches, and Chris has been sleeping next to him on this one for hours and now the sheets smell like Chris's sheets. So of course in this hazy transition out of sleep Zach is powerless against remembering:

> It's the sounds in the back of Chris's throat while they're kissing that really stick with you, and soon you're looking forward to those even more than the full feel of his lips because at least they're speaking the same language.
> 
> Zach is overtaken by heat, from Chris and his damp skin, from too hot sheets and the thought of the sun pummeling at the shaded window above the bed that leaks dim orange light into Chris's hair–Zach chases the gleam of it with his fingers and Chris squirms because he loves slightly naughty things like hair pulling and his hands twisted above his head while Zach partakes of him.
> 
> Outside there's traffic. Not much, but it reminds Zach that schedules and responsibilities await after the sex. Chris brings him back quick, with sloppier technique in his mounting desperation and the subtle rhythmic roll of his hips upwards.
> 
> And when Zach pulls back to regroup before launching a new attack he can see Chris's crisp loud plaid button-down shirt hanging off one shoulder, his throat working elegantly as he swallows and laughs. Chris winds one leg back around him and Zach has to go back to kissing immediately.

There's plenty of mundane stuff that happens like showers and inappropriate breakfast food and fruitless e-mail checking but Zach spends most of it reveling in his little day dream so before he knows it they're standing somewhere outside and playing explorer. Or as Chris calls it, hiking.

The air is living, composed entirely of the wholesomeness of the earth and underwritten by barbecues blackening burgers in the distance. Zach breathes at all in, exhales luxuriously. "Ah, the green smell," Zach sighs.

Chris raises his eyebrow to the audience. "Dude, I didn't bring weed."

"I didn't–it was–just forget it."

Chris shrugs and squints out at the landscape. "Thought you wanted to get away from it all. Or at least the paparazzi."

"Oh, don't pretend you aren't fucking psyched."

Chris snorts at that, then takes the lead off into the great beyond.

It's weird to have so much forest in such close proximity to the beach. All full of dusty trails and sectioned off by far away highway, just wild enough and just civilized enough. It reminds him of the good wooded parts of Central Park and of Frick Park at home with its exercise prone dog people. But the slant of the sun says California. And fuck if Zach shouldn't make a tourism commercial already.

They're in the middle of a sweltering spot of shade that Chris groans at, but Zach says, "I could complain about how hellishly hot it is right now, and we could continue with that as our only topic of conversation for the rest of the summer, as people are wont to do, but instead I'll expound on its spirituality: it's like the heat overtakes you and makes you a part of the earth again, and for that I am grateful."

"I mean, 'wont' and 'expound' aren't necessarily _big_ big words, but they are the kind that you never think about using, and I find that egregiously underhanded of you, Zach, I really do."

"Oh please, everyone knows about 'egregious' now because of Star Wars."

"That was 'grievous'. General Grievous, the galaxy's poster child for emphysema."

"Ha! And _that_ was just a test to see if you really are a no good dirty Star Warshan."

"Nope, that never caught on."

"Hey, let's go on this trail," Zach says, pushes Chris unceremoniously to the side to get ahead of him. Chris laughs and grumbles and trots along in tow.

They've stumbled on a narrow trail, the kind where the outreaching branches make them have to walk real close. Chris smells like the recycled hotel soap he'd packed and both of them had he used. He's smiling absently while sweat beads at his hairline. Zach figures that growing up here makes Chris take the heavenly climate for granted–which is not to say that Chris is accustomed to it so much as disenchanted. And really Chris is disenchanted by most things that weren't dreamed up in long ago parlors by bored rich people in wigs. it

Maybe it's that they're walking close, but Zach had still wanted to ask this: "So… seeing anybody _special_?" he says, as obnoxiously as possible.

Chris makes that noise that's half pissed and half too cool for school.

"Now, that wasn't very lady like, was it?"

Chris laughs. "You know what I've discovered? I have a pattern when it comes to dating. And it's not like a 'I only date tall blondes' kind of thing. I like, alternate between good girls and bad girls. Well, that's not the best terminology, but I'll date a fairly safe, nice enough girl who I could potentially marry and then follow up with a sexy but clinically insane bitch. They're always either too hot or too cold, I don't know…"

"And now you need someone who's just right?"

"No, now I need to try my luck with boys."

"I hope we're not talking actual boys here. Anyway you've dated plenty of guys."

"Not like for real though."

"Thanks, man."

"Oh shit, um—yeah, shit."

"It's cool—at least I'm not just nice enough or a clinically insane bitch." Zach had meant for that to come out nonchalant, honestly.

Chris laughs, because it's his reaction to most things, but he clearly feels bad. "Dude, I'm a dick." Which is a weird thing to say when coupled with those craftily batting eyelashes that ask Zach's forgiveness.

They never really stumble upon this topic, and it's kind of scary now that it's happened. Zach isn't sure what to do–they don't have an established little method of joking it all away, so he just sort of brushes over it. "You look like Bambi."

Chris sneers. "You look like guy in the Geico commercials."

They head back soon after that, discovering that the path faded into nature and forced them to turn around, casually propositioning beers on the beach or fancy wine on the deck along the way.

It may have come across as douchey, but Chris was right–they had never dated seriously. They hadn't hit all the marks. And Zach knows, intellectually, that he fits better with the guy he's currently actually dating, but the reckless feeling of wanting Chris trumps every perfectly rational reason why it will never work.

With Chris it's not like a serious notion he ever does more than entertain, but it's this feeling like an ideal out of childhood that's shiny and juicy with joy but never actually real, just something to measure everything else by and smile at.

*

The next day finds them walking along the beach with bare feet and expensive shades against the quiet morning sun. The sun rules things here like rush-hour traffic rules the city. Zach wonders where the hell the rest of Los Angeles is and why they aren't just chilling out here for the weekend.

They're quiet because it's not quite time for pleasantries yet, not so soon after the coffee ritual, but Zach is content to feel the foamy water surge up between his toes and study the simple sand.

They find somewhere to sit and watch the world go by. Chris says, "Fuck it's nice to be away from people. I'll never understand _people_."

> "Come on, Chris. I don't think it would kill you to give someone the benefit of the doubt for once."
> 
> Chris makes a face, gesturing rapidly in his agitation. "I _do_ , Zach," he says slowly. "That's the whole reason why it pisses me off when someone's fucking rude."
> 
> Zach sighs. Everyone has their irrational bit of crazy that rears its ugly head after the wrong collection of stimuli–Chris's is paranoia that everyone is secretly laughing at him, followed by lashing out at anything in his general vicinity.
> 
> "I'm always nice. I'm fucking congenial, Goddammit."
> 
> Zach _mhmm_ 's tightly, because unfortunately his own bit of crazy involves being not so secretly laughed at and therefore ultra sensitive to people being on the receiving end of someone else's bitchy mood. Needless to say it doesn't mesh very well with Chris.
> 
> "I mean, did you _see_ that look she gave me?"
> 
> "You mean lust?"
> 
> But Chris is consumed by his suspicion. "No, seriously, it's so fucking rude, like, what the fuck did I ever do to her? Oh, _sorry_ for fucking walking, bitch, but it does happen to be the fucking sidewalk, I don't know . . ."
> 
> " _Shut up_ , Chris." It comes out so angry. Chris's jaw practically drops. "Not everybody is on a mission to piss you off, you know. Maybe if you weren't automatically hostile towards everyone you meet—"
> 
> "Oh fuck off, Zach, was I automatically hostile to you?"
> 
> "Kinda, yeah."
> 
> Chris spits out the words: "Yeah, well, maybe you should just find someone who's less of an asshole. Sorry for being so fucking offensive." He speeds up his pace and they walk apart for a block or two.

"You're right," Zach says, snapped out of his reverie by the sound of his own voice.

"Um, of course."

"About us not dating for real."

"Oh. Um." Chris's eyes flicker away. "Look, I didn't mean like . . . I didn't really _mean it_ , you know. And anyway it doesn't even matter now, so."

But Zach's distracted. There's no end to the simple physical things about Chris that make Zach's heart race. Weird things like the hair on his arms, the way his hands are when he walks, his face in profile. Zach isn't a fan of the full on cancer tan, but the Chris's sunkissed skin is wonderfully imperfect, looks like the sun settled there over beauty marks and acne scars.

"Um, Zach?"

"I'm listening," Zach lies.

"K. Just. I don't know why we're talking about stuff that happened two years ago all of a sudden but. But, I'm glad you're back in town."

"Yeah. I guess it just feels weird because it's been, you know, a long time."

"Yeah." Chris swirls his finger in the sand. "With you it's, I don't know, it's just like this sense of relief. I don't have to be something or watch what I say. It's always been like that, like, fuck I don't know, man."

Zach knows Chris must be eyeing him behind the shades, knows Chris might just be able to see right through him. He doesn't care. "No, yeah, I know. It's like coming home." And Chris seems to be analyzing that so Zach adds: "When I come back to LA." There's too many conversations happening at once, and nothing's resolved at all.

Chris laughs, doesn't buy it but doesn't press it either. "We should really get going," he says, stands and brushes off sand and walks.

*

The drive back to the city is interminable, and that's one thing Zach hasn't missed. He likes the freedom of being able to walk anywhere in New York–he likes New York in general, and he doesn't really prefer the West Coast or anything, it's just that LA has such a loud personality.

Only when Chris's front door finally closes and they're finally enveloped in silent house does it really set in that they've wasted hours on the road. There's a collective sigh and Chris looks over at him.

"Beer now?"

"Yes please," Zach says, trudges over to the couch in the blue midday dimness of the room. Doesn't bother turning on a light since the air-conditioning hasn't booted up yet and it's motherfucking hot out.

Chris returns and everything's just wreathed in silence–the sound of his feet and the sound of the couch when he sits down and the sound of lazy 25 miles per hour cars outside. Zach takes the proffered drink and feels himself start to relax after a silent sip or two.

It's as dark and quiet in here as it is sunny everywhere else, outside, in this place.

"So," Chris says. "You're going back soon right?"

"Yep." And that would be a good place to pause and reflect but something's loosened Zach's tongue. "You know, this happens all the time. I'm always coming back from New York or leaving for New York, and always just like seeing you in a rush and the whole setup of the story's getting a little old."

"Story?"

"I liked it when there was always the possibility of running into you at the grocery store or like meeting up at Château Marmont like douchebags or walking by your house when I walk the dog and just being happy because I had the _option_ of seeing you, even if we probably only hung out on a monthly basis for most the time we've known each other."

Chris smiles and looks down and his hair shifts forward with it a little and it summons up:

> And Zach just wasn't able to take it any more, just leans in to lick Chris's bottom lip for himself. And the way Chris smiles to himself and has to look away for a minute, and the way Zach has to slide halfway off the couch to angle his head and get at his mouth again, fill his hand with Chris's bicep.
> 
> "Mmm," Chris says, pushes back Zach's hair and starts moving his lips against his.

Zach isn't magnetically drawn to him, in fact he's wracked with doubt and common sense on all sides, and it's hard to breathe through all of that and will himself to get this close to Chris and press his mouth all up against his and freeze there stupidly while feeling the seconds trudge onward deep in his psyche. At some point Zach does pull back a little, and freezes there stupidly too.

It's so artistically slow motion the way Chris responds–this tight exhale, this glance of his lashes and nudge of his nose before reuniting his lips with Zach's again thoughtfully.

And hell yes they're going to kiss their way to the bedroom, smashing together against walls and displacing decorative details along the way.

Chris kicks in the door, which isn't particularly difficult, but it's still tantalizingly macho of him so Zach gets their shirts off and Chris's skin against his ASAP. Chris just moans into his mouth.

Zach twists their variously intertwined limbs until he can get Chris at just the right spot between dresser and wall, lets Chris control the kisses while Chris lets him map out his lean lovely body from groin to hips to muscles to sexy shoulders arms sweaty neck and then just holding his face and trying to kiss him deeper than is biologically possible.

Chris pulls him in, hands slipping into Zach's back pockets and squeezing while he grinds into him, kiss getting breathlesser by the second until Zach finds himself sucking Chris's lip and just gyrating emphatically against him with Chris gasps half-formed words into his mouth.

Impulse dictates it's time to move on so Zach indulges in one final, long-lasting thrust before relocating to the bed.

The air conditioning's only just waking up and it simply can't contend with the 90 some degree heat, apparently, and the air seems heavy with sweat already, so that they're doomed from the start.

Chris gets a good grip on Zach, grins and falls back onto the bed with Zach toppling after him. Chris's laughing/panting and Zach chases after it with biting kisses but has to sacrifice them for a minute so they can extricate themselves from their painted on jeans, which are wonderful to behold on Chris provided he's not actively trying to get into them, because that's a whole five minutes lost right there.

Apparently Zach's slightly more practiced in this particular art because he's down to his underwear first. He assists in the final few tugs of fabric around Chris's ankles and looks up and has to catch his breath.

It's not even the oversaturated color of his eyes, it's the look itself. That smirk that's so bold and blatant but it shakes around the edges with eagerness. Looking at _Zach_ and Zach would rather die than go without that look in his eyes.

Chris jerks his head up to tempt him to a kiss and Zach gladly accepts, tries to keep it gentle and ripe with potential while aligning them just right. Chris twists a leg up around Zach's to move him up the bed at little and Zach gets a grip on his thigh to put it up over his hip where he wants it. Chris makes a low sound and he's hard and writing and Zach just wants them to be fucking already.

"Sex now?" Chris pants, loudly whispery this close.

"Yes please."

Zach doesn't fumble with the drawer by the bed, surprised by the surety of his hands as he succeeds in tossing the condom to Chris while he warms lube in his palm. They really have this little dance down, don't they?

Chris seems to be equally amused, grinning on his way to sit up and bite Zach's neck, stroking Zach's cock lingeringly before rolling the condom on it. So full of breathless laughter while they kiss and Zach eases him back onto the mattress.

Zach obsesses over Chris's wonderfully exposed neck and jaw while he works a finger into him, shivers hotly at Chris's hands–one swirling absentmindedly through his hair while the other pumps Zach's cock slowly.

Zach gets a second finger in, starts to lick his way down Chris's body until he's got Chris's cock in his mouth and his fingers curled deep inside him. Chris tries to lean into all of it and Zach holds him down with his free hand slipping over Chris's thigh.

"Just," Chris gasps. "Now. Fuck, just, _now_ , come on . . ."

And Zach doesn't need to be told twice, aching all over for this.  
Reaches for the bottle of lube and finds Chris already there, pushy and pouring a liberal amount over Zach's cock, scooting close to nuzzle his neck and squeeze his cock and ask in a gravelly tone, "So how do you want me?"

"Fuck," Zach mutters, doubly feverish with such words in Chris's voice. He gathers up some pillows and wrestles Chris facedown into them, Chris laughing into sweaty sheets, groaning long and shaky when Zach pushes into him slowly deeply fully. Zach kisses at the back of his neck and Chris sighs and shivers.

Zach starts fucking him to the music of Chris's short little puffs of breath. It's so dark and hot and close in here, so deafeningly real or maybe just fantasy but Chris finds a rhythm to match Zach's that has them both careening ever closer to the edge. Zach moves them sideways a little, enough to get Chris's cock in hand and jerk it in time with his thrusts. Chris wants it harder so Zach does that; Chris wants it more so Zach does that, so overheated he's starting to melt into the atmosphere.

Zach's climax takes him by surprise and Chris answers it with an appreciative moan and a few more frantic movements until he comes too, on his chest and Zach's hand and the already damp sheets.

They're barely separated, still cleaning and catching their breath when Chris wonders aloud: "So what happens now, Zach?"

"I." He clears his throat, starts over: " _You_ …" How Chris is able to speak while Zach's head's still spinning is a mystery. But he's looking at Zach, and the wash of pleasure coursing through him makes him want to never let Chris out of his sight ever so he stares back, devoted to that look of his.

Chris smiles, rueful and offhanded at once. "I'm curious. I can't figure out the ending, here. Do we just pretend this never happened or do we hook up whenever we see each other and not talk about it or do we declare our love from the mountaintops? I don't even know what I _want_ to happen. I don't even know," he says, turning to him better.

But Zach will not compute it all, is compelled to kiss that generous mouth.

"Mmm…you know what," Chris murmurs when they part. "All that shit people always cite about why they're not right for each other or want different things or just don't share the same core values–it just goes right out the fucking window when I kiss you."

Zach laughs against the ensuing floodgate of feeling and just kisses him again.

> "Where were you."
> 
> Zach jumps out of the way while Chris storms through his front door. "Good, how are you?"
> 
> "Oh cut the crap, Zach." And Chris whirls around in this dramatic way that could really have benefited from a cape. But the look in his eyes scares off any potential quipping.
> 
> "It's not like you aren't busy too, you know." Zach sighs his agitation away. "Chris, you know I–"
> 
> "You have to meet me halfway here. I'm serious. If we can't even find enough time to see each other now just wait till we really start working again. What's going to happen when Heroes starts filming again? You're just gonna set up five minute speed dates between takes and then end up canceling on those too?"
> 
> "Chris, you're being ridiculous, of course I want to spend time with you, but–"
> 
> And Chris gets close, touches Zach's face like he's missing something that used to be there. "I am being ridiculous. That's what people do. That's what people feel. You can't compartmentalize every little thing like fucking Spock or whatever."
> 
> "You just called me Spock as an insult. That's what just happened, right?"
> 
> Chris wants to laugh, Zach can tell, but he kisses Zach instead, and something about it terrifies him.
> 
> Zach confides to Chris's kiss: "I want to see you more. I _want_ this."
> 
> "Yeah, and that's the problem. You just _want_ and you never _do_." Chris fiddles with Zach's shirttails obsessively and Zach can taste something sharply shockingly wrong approaching, snarling and snapping as it goes. "Maybe this has run its course."

Some unknowable time later, after the obligatory recuperative catnap has served its purpose, Zach rolls out of bed to wash up.

"Hey!" Chris says vaguely, half-asleep but he's got a decent grip on Zach's wrist. "Sit back down where you belong in the corner of my bar with your high heels on."

"You . . . you listened to Gaga for me?"

"What can I say? I appreciated that it wasn't 'you and me' with an actual U or some shit."

"You're romantic. Don't deny it."

"Here, just—" Chris is laughing and flushed and drawing him in. "Just."

Zach smiles and kisses him because there's something about just knowing when it's right.

*


End file.
